'It’s one thing to seek a tax haven, it’s something else to live in Russia': French actor may regret his recent defection

Gerard Depardieu may soon regret his recent defection to Russia

ANALYSIS

The defection of French icon Gérard Depardieu to Russia in protest at a tax hike was a generous and civilized affair, to judge by the pictures. It began with a sumptuous dinner at President Vladimir Putin’s palace on the Black Sea, after which the Oscar-nominated star of Cyrano de Bergerac and Green Card flew with his new red passport to Saransk in central Russia, where he dressed in peasant garb and was offered a free apartment.

But as cozy and warm as it can seem from a distance, Russian retail politics is as dangerous as a sleeping bear, even — perhaps especially — to men as big as Mr. Depardieu.

“What is happening is fun at one level,” said Aurel Braun, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, and visiting professor of government at Harvard University. The French are upset, the Russians are elated, and Mr. Putin gets to pretend he showed up the West by luring its best talent.

If you do run afoul of the authorities, then neither the constitution nor the courts are likely to help you

“But the reality is it’s one thing to seek a tax haven, it’s something else to live in Russia and be subject to so-called Russian laws,” Prof. Braun said. “If you do run afoul of the authorities, then neither the constitution nor the courts are likely to help you.”

He compared Russia’s political culture to the literary style of magical realism, in that everything seems normal “as long as you’re in the good books of the fantasy spinner.” Otherwise, all bets are off.

With its vast human and natural resources, Russia could be a normal and successful country like Japan or Germany, Prof. Braun said. Instead, under Mr. Putin, it still vainly aspires to be a superpower, tries to “levitate” the economy instead of fix it, and has become “a unidimensional country, a fantasy land.” Its political culture is arbitrary and unpredictable, and normal rules do not apply to those in power.

As in the case of the persecuted former oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsy, someone who was once an ally can quickly become an enemy, just as a friendship built on a public image can become a liability.

“It’s devastating in politics because people are not toys. They are not literary devices,” Mr. Braun said.

The last time Mr. Depardieu was so widely exposed in the international press, it was for unsuccessfully urinating into a bottle on board an airplane.

“Political magical realism is detached from the ordinary reality of how people deal with each other, a set of rules, norms, laws. So there is a built-in unpredictability. So we don’t know how they would react in Russia [to such an embarrassment]. It could be that Putin would laugh it off, or see it as intolerable. Or worse, what if he expresses support for Pussy Riot, or talks to dissidents, or politically urinates on the system in some way? Then we just don’t know,” Prof. Braun said. “There is a significant danger.”

Mr. Depardieu, 64, is a popular face in Russian commercials, recently starred in a movie about Rasputin, and has plans to make a film on the life of a Cossack revolutionary.

For the traditionally Francophilic Russians, whose aristocracy once spoke French as a mark of distinction, Mr. Depardieu carries a powerful symbolism. And he might soon have company.

Brigitte Bardot, the actress whose politics have often been controversially aligned with the far-right, threatened to similarly abandon France for Russia if authorities in Lyon go ahead with a court order to euthanize two elephants with tuberculosis.

Mr. Depardieu’s motives were more narrowly financial. He accused French Socialist President Francois Hollande of “spitting on success” for his plans to levy a tax of 75% on income over one million euros. In an open letter, he claimed to have paid 145-million euros in tax over his career, and 85% last year. Personal tax in Russia is a low 13%, which rises to 30% for non-residents.

Mr. Depardieu is not expected to live permanently in Russia. He recently purchased a home in Belgium, near the French border, a move described by French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault as “pathetic.”